FIG. 1 illustrates the topography of a typical cellular telecommunications network 10 (e.g., mobile phone network). The network 10 is geographically divided into a number of cells or sectors 12, which are typically contiguous and which together define the coverage area of the network 10. Each cell 12 is served by a base station 14, which includes one or more fixed/stationary transceivers and antennae 16 for wireless communications, over a reverse link 24 and a forward link 26, with a set of distributed mobile devices 18 (e.g., mobile phones, wireless PDA's, wireless devices with high-speed data transfer capabilities, “WiFi”-equipped computer terminals, and the like) that provide service to the network's users. The base stations 14 are in turn connected (either wirelessly or through land lines) to a radio network controller (“RNC”) 20, which serves a particular number of base stations depending on network capacity and configuration. The RNC 20 acts as the interface between the wireless/radio end of the network 10 and a public switched telephone network, packet switched core network or other network(s) 22, including performing the signaling functions necessary to establish calls or other data transfer to and from the mobile devices 18.
The RNC 20 is the governing element in the radio access network and is responsible for control of the base stations 14 that are connected to the RNC 20. The RNC 20 includes traffic processors to carry out radio resource management and control the use and integrity of the radio resources within the wireless network. Thus, the RNC is able to process signaling traffic, terminate access, perform connection setup, process data traffic, as well as many other functions.
Various methods exist for conducting wireless communications between the base stations 14 and mobile devices 18. One such method is the CDMA (code division multiple access) spread-spectrum multiplexing scheme, widely implemented in the United States under the “IS-95,” “IS-2000,” or other standards. While early systems were primarily configured for voice communications, technological improvements have enabled the development of “3-G” (third generation) networks, such as CDMA-based 1x-EVDO wireless networks (1x-EVDO is an implementation of the CDMA2000® “3-G” mobile telecommunications protocol/specification configured for the high-speed wireless transmission of both voice and non-voice data.) and similar wireless networks for both voice and high-speed packet data communications.
One technological improvement enabled by “3-G” networks is broadcast/multicast service, which allows high-speed delivery of packet data to multiple access terminals, such as mobile devices 18. Thus, broadcast/multicast service provides the capability to reach an unlimited number of users simultaneously, allowing the broadcast of television, film, information and other media. To provide the capability to reach an unlimited number of users simultaneously, broadcast/multicast service requires a high priority quality of service (QoS) and a high reliability.
To provide service to the mobile devices 18, including broadcast/multicast service, the serving RNC selects traffic processor(s) for each flow to process and transmit the contents to the base stations 14. For example, in broadcast/multicast service, the broadcast/multicast flow may be broadcast by the traffic processor(s) to hundreds of base stations, simultaneously. The broadcast/multicast flow carries a burst of a large number of packets, wherein the burst size will vary widely depending upon various system parameters. Accordingly, the processor occupancy required at the traffic processor(s) to process and transmit the broadcast/multicast service flow will also vary widely depending upon the various system parameters, making it difficult to guarantee the required performance by provide a traffic processor (or traffic processors) with sufficient resources to support broadcast/multicast service.